Hie Citizen and the State. 



AN ARGUMENT 



NATHAN MATTHEWS, JR 

IN DEFENCE OF 

PRIVATE SCHOOLS, 



Before the Joint Committee on Education of the Massachusetts Legis-' 
lature, April 25, 1889. 



BOSTON: 

GEO. H. ELLIS, PRINTER, 141 FRANKLIN ST. 
1889. 































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The Citizen and the State. 


AN ARGUMENT 


NATHAN MATTHEWS, JR., 

IN DEFENCE OF 


PRIVATE SCHOOLS, 


Before the Joint Committee on Education of the Massachusetts Legis¬ 
lature, April 25, 1889. 




BOSTON: 

GEO. H. ELLIS, PRINTER, 141 FRANKLIN ST. 
1889. 








THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 


“ An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.” 

— Thomas Jefferson". 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : 

I have the honor to appear on behalf of 16 private Prot¬ 
estant schools established in the city of Boston, to remonstrate 
against the passage of any law that shall subordinate the 
methods and details of education in such schools to the control 
of State or town authorities ; or that shall in any manner 
prohibit the parent from educating his children as he pleases. 

Among these remonstrants are Chauncy Hall School and 
the schools of Mr. G. W. C. Noble and other well known 
teachers. 

We concede, Mr. Chairman, the principle of compulsory 
education ; that is to say, we admit that the government may, 
by appropriate penalties, compel the parent or guardian to 
furnish the children under his care with an elementary educa¬ 
tion ; and we have no fault to find with the catalogue of 
studies which the Legislature has prescribed for such instruc¬ 
tion, that is, with the “studies required by law,” which 
are reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, geography, 
United States history, drawing, physiology, and hygiene. But 
we claim for every citizen the right to determine for himself 
the methods and details of that instruction which he is bound 
to furnish to his children; we object to the doctrine that all 
education in these or any branches of learning should be 
uniform, the same for all schools and for all scholars ; and we 



4 


deny the right of the Legislature to subject the education of 
our children to the arbitrary and final dictation of the local 
school committee. 

We are no enemies of the public schools; on the contrary, 
we are as deeply interested in their success, and as willing to 
contribute our proportion of the taxes that support them, as 
any section of the people. While declining to accept each and 
every public school in the Commonwealth as the best possible 
and best conceivable, or to sink our intelligence in the singular 
delusion that our common school system, as it exists to-day, is 
perfect and beyond improvement; and while emphatically 
refusing to bow down before the annual school committee as 
the sole repository of the educational wisdom of the people, 
we yet resent with indignation the suggestion that has been 
made by some of the witnesses for the petitioners, that parents 
and teachers interested in private schools, and generally 
everybody who objects to the petitioners’ demands, are 
hostile to the maintenance of free public schools. Nothing 
could be further from the truth ; there are no people more 
earnestly and honestly devoted to the cause of free elementary 
education than those who have dedicated their lives to the 
instruction of the young, though it be in private institutions ; 
and I have never yet seen the parent who was unwilling to 
pay his share of the cost of our public schools, though he 
sent his own children elsewhere. 

Is it not fair, however, to suppose that if our public school 
system is to be diverted from its original and present purpose; 
if from an organization maintained for the sake of furnishing an 
education to those children whose parents, from motives of 
economy, or for any other reason, prefer to send them there, 
our public school system is to be converted into a machine of 
the type advocated by the French Socialists ; if from an instru¬ 
ment of light it is to be made an engine of oppression ; — 
then that hearty support which our public schools have ever 
received from all sections of the people will rapidly fall away ? 
The true friends of the public schools, Mr. Chairman, are not 
necessarily those persons who go up and down the land 
denouncing one third of their fellow citizens as the disloyal 
subjects of a foreign power, and then come up to the Legisla- 


5 


ture to advocate a socialistic cure for evils that have no exist¬ 
ence outside their own imaginations. 

Let us see, gentlemen, what the private schools of 
Massachusetts are, and what they have done for the cause of 
education. In the first place, it is a great mistake to assume 
that they are principally Catholic or so-called “parochial” 
schools ; they are, on the contrary, both in numbers and 
number of pupils, mainly Protestant. The statistics of the 
State Board of Education are very meagre; but the statement 
of Colonel Higginson, that in Cambridge there are thirty or 
forty private schools, only two or three of which are “parochial,” 
gives a fair idea of the actual situation. 

Another mistake that these self-constituted guardians of the 
public schools, our friends the petitioners, make, is to suppose, 
or rather to charge — for I cannot think that they really 
believe it — that people send their children to private schools 
solely for the sake of certain “ social ” advantages, for which 
crime these schools have been denounced as “ miserable ” and 
“ pernicious.” Nobody has defined what these alleged 
“ social ” advantages are ; neither has any one ventured to 
explain what is meant by threats of “ social disability,” for 
making which the wicked citizen is to be fined $1,000, accord¬ 
ing to the provisions of Gov. Long’s bill. 

The petitioners’ indignation at the existence of these private 
schools is, I think, largely fictitious, put forth as a cover for 
their attack on the parochial schools ; for they cannot be so 
ignorant as not to know that when children are sent to private 
rather than to public schools, it is for reasons mainly, if not 
wholly, educational. It is because the instruction in the local 
public school is, in the judgment of the parent, inferior in some 
respect to that afforded in some private institution, that he 
sends his child to the latter ; or perhaps he prefers a school 
where the sexes are kept apart; or, like a portion of the Catholic 
population, he thinks that religious training should go hand in 
hand with secular education, and therefore sends his child to a 
church school. Some of the most celebrated private schools in 
the country owe their great popularity mainly to the fact that 
they are professedly church schools ; and I venture to think 
that nowhere but at these hearings would such schools as St. 


6 


Paul’s and St. Mark’s be denounced as “miserable and 
pernicious.” 

Our private schools, Mr. Chairman, are a great and indispen¬ 
sable help to the cause of education, partly because they are in 
many cases better than the public schools of the same locality, 
and therefore furnish a better education to children of parents 
who can afford to pay tuition fees ; partly, again, by affording to 
our public schools that competition which is the indispensable 
prerequisite to progress in* educational matters as in everything 
else ; and partly by furnishing a means of educational experi¬ 
ment which would otherwise be wanting. The public school is 
not the place for trying experiments, nor would the people be 
satisfied to have the school fund used for such a purpose. The 
place for experiments, essential as they are to all advance¬ 
ment, is the private school supported by voluntary contribu¬ 
tions. The private school, as Colonel Higginson says, is the 
“ experimental station of the public school.” 

Let us push this matter a little further. If it is wrong, as 
has been insisted at these hearings, to educate a child anywhere 
but in a public school; if it is wrong to separate him from the 
majority of his fellows, and to educate him in a private school ; 
why is it not equally wrong to push his education further than 
the curriculum of the public schools allows ? If an education 
different from that afforded by the public schools is inad¬ 
missible, as tending to create class distinctions, why is not 
a more extended education equally objectionable? The con¬ 
demnation of all education that is not open to the public free 
of cost and controlled by public authority is the logical result 
of the opinions we have listened to in this committee room, 
but which I think are seldom heard elsewhere. 

We object, therefore, to the proposed legislation on practical 
educational grounds. The work done by the private schools, in 
furnishing opportunities for experiment and the stimulus of 
friendly competition, is of incalculable benefit not only to our 
public schools, but to the general cause of education. As Colonel 
Higginson said, almost every improvement in our public schools 
has been brought about by experimentation in the private schools; 
we have had a recent and conspicuous proof of that assertion in 
the history of the kindergarten, and the manual training school 


7 


will soon furnish another. The committee will remember that 
none of the men who have made themselves and Massachusetts 
famous for their educational work have asked for this legisla¬ 
tion. Not a single public school teacher has come up here to 
support any of these bills, except Mr. Bartlett, the superinten¬ 
dent of the Haverhill Schools. What weight you will attach 
to Mr. Bartlett’s opinion depends on what you think of his 
remark to Judge Carter: ‘‘They, (the French) have no right 
to keep a school that I do not approve of.” This Mr. Bartlett 
has in some way mixed himself up with the Czar of Russia. 

We object, as I have said, on educational grounds, to any 
law which shall place all private schools under the arbitrary 
domination of school boards, State or local. The remon¬ 
strants — those whom I represent, as well as Mr. Donnelly’s 
clients — object also to the proposed legislation on other 
and broader grounds than those to which I have alluded. 
They stand upon the simple American doctrine that the right of 
the parent to educate his children as, and where, and to what 
extent he pleases, ought never to be abridged by legislative 
interference; if he fails to provide them.with even an element¬ 
ary education, the public authorities may and ought to interfere 
by punishing him and educating the children in spite of him, 
but beyond that they should never go. One would suppose 
that such a declaration of the powers and limitations of govern¬ 
ment would commend itself to the judgment of every one 
brought up to believe in our American ideas of civil liberty; 
but within the past few years a new light has been seen, and a 
new dispensation has been preached, by certain persons who 
have found that they could make notoriety and profit by stirring 
up the lingering embers of religious hatred. It had been sup¬ 
posed that the old antagonism between Protestant and Catholic 
which divided our ancestors was nearly dead ; but it seems that 
there are some among us still with intelligences so narrow and 
prejudices so unreasonable as to believe that the free institutions 
of our country are in danger of subjection to the Pope of Rome. 
Practising upon the ignorance and credulity of such people, the 
leaders in this anti-Catholic revival were yet aware that they must 
do something to keep the thing alive beyond the weekly invective 
from the pulpit. So they came up here last year asking for a 


8 


measure which compares with that proposed this year as tem¬ 
perance does with prohibition. The Legislature, however, 
would take no action. Then came the episodes of “ Swinton’s 
History,” and the French school at Haverhill, followed up by a 
vigorous ecclesiastical campaign in Boston last December — 
perhaps the most disgraceful page in our municipal history. 
And now the Legislature of 1889 is asked to pass laws much 
more extreme than anything that has hitherto been suggested. 
You are asked, Mr. Chairman, to enact a law calculated not 
merely to impair, but to prohibit altogether the free exercise of 
the citizen’s will in respect to the education of his children- 
And you are asked to pass this law not merely for the avowed 
purpose of antagonizing the church of Rome, but with a view 
to the introduction into this Commonwealth of one of the 
worst forms of State Socialism. The essential principle of 
Socialism is the regulation by the coercive power of gov¬ 
ernment of the individual in all the departments and details 
of life, according to certain fixed and uniform standards. The 
people, instead of being the creators of the government, are 
regarded as its creatures; and the government itself is magni¬ 
fied as the “ State,” into something superior to religion, to 
the family, to the rights of property, and to all the other insti¬ 
tutions of civilized society. As applied to educational matters, 
the dream of socialism is to substitute the “ State ” for the 
parent, and to mould in one fixed system of uniform compulsory 
education the youth of the community, who, separated from 
their natural parents, are to become the “children of the 
State.” 

The socialistic tendency of the petitioners’ demands is not 
denied by them. Mr. Gracey took the ground that “ the State 
must be protected in its claim to educate the children.” Dr. 
Miner used the following language : “ The State has sovereign 
power over the education of the young.” . . . “ My solemn con¬ 
viction is that it will become the imperative duty of the State to 
take the education of all the young into its own'hands.” And Mr. 
Lund, in opening the case for the petitioners, claimed that 
“ every private school should submit to personal examination,” 
that “ parents should be prosecuted for sending their children 
to a private school however good, not approved by the authori- 


9 


ties,” and put the “right of the State paramount to every¬ 
thing.” In reply to a question asked by Mr. Gargan, Mr. Lund 
said that the “ State ” was “ above the conscience of the indi¬ 
vidual.” 

To show the general drift of opinion in that section of the 
community that is carrying on this agitation, I quote the third 
resolution of the New England Methodist Conference held last 
week at Worcester. “ In the State, as the centre of Supreme 
civil authority, inheres the right to centralize public instruction. 
The State is sovereign.” This is one of a series of resolutions 
denouncing parochial schools and urging the passage of the bill 
now before this committee; the whole having been reported by 
a “ Committee on Romanism.” 

I have also noticed with amazement that the report of the 
Secretary of the State Board of Education for 1888 contains 
much of the same sort of stuff. Here are some samples : 

“A common training of the people of a free State is necessary, 
that through a common development they may be disposed to 
think alike concerning the fundamental principles which should 
form the basis of civil government, and to exercise that common 
sympathy by which alone it is possible for human individuals to 
become a people.” . . . . “ The necessary conditions of 

unity in thinking and feeling by a people are educational institu¬ 
tions in which the youth may be trained together by common 
courses of study, pursued in accordance with a common method.” 

“ The fundamental idea of a system of public common 
schools, supported and controlled by the State, is that of 
common education, which every citizen of the State must 
receive as a necessary preparation for citizenship.” . . . 

“ The teachers hold parental relations to their pupils, and the 
pupils the relation of children.” .... “The elementary 
education of all the children of the State should be communicated 
in public common schools organized and directed by State 
authority.” 

I do not believe, Mr. Chairman, that the people of Massa¬ 
chusetts are aware that one of their paid officials is mis¬ 
spending his time and salary in preaching the gospel of 
Socialism. 

The doctrine that the State is the child’s true parent is as old 


IO 


as Sparta where it formed the basis of a profitless civilization ; 
but in modern times it has nowhere found so much support as 
among the French. In the reign of Louis XIV of France, who, 
like Mr. Bartlett of Haverhill, considered himself the State, the 
principle of compulsory education was invoked for the purpose 
of coercing people into becoming Catholics. In the darkest 
days of the Revolution compulsory education in public schools 
was advocated by the terrible Danton in language that reads 
like an extract from Mr. Dickinson’s Report: “ It is time,” he 
said, “to re-establish that great but almost forgotten principle 
that children belong to the State before they belong to their 
parents.” Time was also snatched from directing the opera¬ 
tions of the guillotine to pass a law for compulsory examination, 
the avowed object of which was to “ have the child acquire 
the knowledge that was necessary to make him a French citi¬ 
zen.” If you will read the debates in the French Assembly on 
these two laws, gentlemen, you will almost fancy yourselves at 
another hearing in the Green Room, except that the advocates of 
an educational Reign of Terror will be Danton and Robespierre 
instead of Dr. Miner and Mr. Bartlett. Ever since the Revolu¬ 
tion the struggle between the citizen and the State for the 
education of the young, has gone on with varying result; just 
now, by virtue of the legislation of 1886, a sort of compromise 
is being tried. The judgment of the people, however, is shown 
by the unconscious verdict of the language ; the private school 
has come, both in common speech and in the official language 
of legislative enactment, to be called the “ free school,” in dis¬ 
tinction to those schools supported by the State, which are 
called public or national. 

Such, then, are the teachings of the Social Revolution 
upheld by the leaders of this movement, — men who would 
exchange the Christian family for the centralized paternalism 
of the “ State.” 

Equally startling with the discovery that such views are 
entertained by anybody is the assertion confidently made by 
Dr. Miner, that they represent the settled policy of the State 
of Massachusetts ; or, to use his own words, that “ The policy 
of the Commonwealth is that the decision of the local school 
committee shall be absolute and final in regard to all schools.” 


Nothing could be further from the truth than this. Such 
was the policy of the Commonwealth in colonial and provincial 
days. Thus, in 1642, the selectmen of the towns were directed 
to “ take account . . . . of all parents and masters, and of 

their children,” and to divide the town among them, appointing to 
every one a certain number of families to have special oversight 
of. In 1654, it was enacted that no man should teach a school 
unless he was “sound in the faith,” and, in 1711, that no one 
should keep a school but such as were of “ sober mind, .... 
and have the allowance and approbation of the selectmen of the 
town,” with a penalty of forty shillings. The first school law, 
passed after the Revolution (St. L&79, ch. 19, § 9), provided that 
no one should keep a school unless he had a certificate of 
capacity from the selectmen or the school committee ; also 
(§ 10), that no alien should keep a school. 

It seems hardly necessary to point out that the period 
covered by this legislation was not distinguished for religious 
tolerance. In 1629 the only Episcopalians to be found within 
the charter limits were expelled, and in 1631 all Episcopalians 
and Romanists were disfranchised. The charter of 1692 
granted liberty of conscience to all but Papists; and in 1700 
the Jesuits were expelled. During this whole period, of course, 
an English bishop was as much of a bugaboo to our ancestors 
as the Pope of Rome is to-day to some of their descendants, and 
Episcopalians fared little better than Roman Catholics. When, 
however, the darkness of that period of suspicion and intolerance 
had been dispelled by the light of civil liberty, this whole 
system disappeared, and all restraints were removed from pri¬ 
vate teaching in schools or otherwise. This was accomplished 
by chapter 143 of the Acts of 1826. 

No change was made in our school laws (affecting this 
question) from 1826 to 1852, when an Act (St. 1852, ch. 240) 
was passed providing for compulsory education. This law very 
carefully guarded the right of private education, for while it 
provided, under a $20 penalty, that every person having a child 
in his care between the ages of 8 and 14 should send the same 
to some public school in the town where he lived for twelve 
weeks each year, an exception was made in favor of parents 
whose children were sent to schools not in the town or who were 


12 


“ otherwise furnished with the means of education for a like 
period.” The General Statutes of i860 (ch. 41) condensed the 
Act of 1852, and provided simply that if the child was otherwise 
“ furnished with the means of education for a like period,” no 
offense was committed. There can be little room to argue that 
the omission of any reference to other schools indicated that 
the authors of the General Statutes intended to alter the law 
by abolishing private schools ; such a proceeding in a mere 
revision and consolidation of the annual statutes would be 
unprecedented. Then in 1873 (ch. 279), a clause was inserted : 
“ but if such child has attended a private day school approved 
by the school committee ... or has otherwise been fur¬ 
nished with the means of education,” etc., and in 1878 (ch. 

181) it was provided that private schools shall be approved only 
when the teaching is in English, etc., etc., substantially as in 
Public Statutes, ch. 47, §2. 

Now whatever be the literal meaning of our present law,— 
and that is certainly ambiguous,— one thing is evident, and 
that is that the policy of the State of Massachusetts, (down to 
within a few years at least,) as distinguished from the policy of 
our Puritan ancestors, has been to give the freeest scope to 
private education. This policy is also shown in the abandon¬ 
ment of all interest in Harvard College, and in the growing 
disinclination of the Legislature to give State aid to pri¬ 
vate institutions. Morever, no one ever contended that the 
statutes of i860 and 1873 were intended to subordinate all 
private schools to the domination of the State, until within a few 
years past; nor was any attempt made to inspect private schools 
until the commencement of the present agitation. 

Looking at the course of legislation in the other States 
and Territories of the Union, you will find, gentlemen, that in 
only fifteen besides Massachusetts is the principle of compulsory 
education recognized at all, and that in none of these is there any 
pretense made of interfering, by inspection or otherwise, with 
private schools. In most of these States, the private school is 
put on a footing of absolute equality with the public school; in 
some, the private school is required to furnish as good instruc¬ 
tion, or instruction in the same branches, as the public schools; 
but in none is there any law interfering with liberty of educa- 




13 


tion in its widest sense or any provision for inspection by State 
or local authorities ; the invariable penalty is a simple fine. 

Let me read to you a description of the American school 
system contained in the great work of Buisson, published in 
1887:—“In the United States private instruction is absolutely 
free in all its stages. Neither the Federal Government nor the 
States exercise any control over private schools. This condi¬ 
tion of things is the historical outcome of American educational 
institutions. Individual activity has created everything ; and it 
is by a process of slow transformation that the primary school, 
formerly a purely private establishment, has risen to a place 
among public institutions. Since the organization in the various 
States of a system of public education, the private schools have 
lost much of their importance, and their number has consider¬ 
ably diminished, but they are still entirely free from State con¬ 
trol. To-day there are few private primary schools except the 
Catholic; but in the field of secondary and higher instruction 
the unrestricted activity of the citizens continues to develop, and 
almost all secondary and higher grade establishments belong 
to individuals or corporations.” 

The public school, gentlemen, was intended to supplement, 
not to supplant, the private schools. 

Gentlemen, the spirit of our institutions is opposed to the 
whole theory of paternal government; to the doctrine that we 
are the slaves of an imaginary “ State ; ” and to the usurpation 
by that authority of the control of private life. The Declara¬ 
tion of Independence was a declaration in behalf of individual 
as well as of colonial independence ; according to it “ government 
derives its just powers” not from the State, or even from the 
people, but “from the consent of the governed,” that is, the 
individual; and in the language of its author in after years, 
“an elective despotism was not the government we fought for.” 

The principle for which the petitioners contend is bad enough 
and thoroughly un-American ; but the method of enforcing the 
proposed legislation, the compulsory inspection of private 
schools, by local school committees, is worse. The statutes 
give a right of inspection in the case of certain articles of con 
sumption such as milk, oils, butter, etc., offered or kept for sale ; 
and it has been seriously argued by counsel that this constitutes 


14 


a precedent for the inspection of private schools. That is, the 
crime of keeping a private school is similar to that of offering 
diseased meat, or watered milk, or imitation butter for public 
sale! It did not occur to the counsel that the reason for inspec¬ 
tion in such cases is the danger that the inferior article may 
otherwise be sold and the damage done without hope of correc¬ 
tion ; whereas the keeping of an inferior school is a continuous 
act and ascertainable by ordinary legal process. 

Moreover, the right of inspection would seem to involve the 
right of entry, at least at all seasonable hours. Do you know, 
gentlemen, in what cases and in what cases only, the law allows 
an entry on private property ? Apart from the common law 
relating to breaches of the peace and felonies, a right of entry 
upon a warrant and sometimes without one, is given in cases of 
dog and cock fighting, gambling, embezzlement, and for the 
purpose of discovering counterfeit coin, calves killed under four 
weeks old, drugs for abortion, and obscene and indecent literature. 
This is about all; and yet it is solemnly proposed to subject the 
teacher of a private school to an inspection as inquisitorial and 
arbitrary as if he or she had been suspected of keeping indecent 
literature instead of unapproved schoolbooks! 

The machinery of inspection is wholly unnecessary. The 
obligation to educate one’s children can be enforced under 
existing laws without resorting to the novel and offensive 
remedy of entry and inspection. The truant officers are charged 
by P. S., ch. 47, § 3 with the duty of vigilantly inquiring into all 
cases of neglect; P. S., ch. 41, § 13 provides for returns from 
all private schools to the State Board of Education; and finally, 
in a prosecution under P. S., ch. 47, § 1 (the law under discussion), 
the burden of proving that the private school in question was a 
proper one and the instruction adequate, is on. the defendant, 
that is the parent. All that the prosecuting officer has to show 
is that the child did not attend a public school ; whatever is 
incumbent in the way of private education must be shown by 
the parent; he must prove affirmatively either that the child 
attended an approved private school, or some school which in 
fact furnished the “means of education.” 

Why we should be acute to invent novel and unpopular 
methods of preventing the commission of the new and purely 


15 


statutory crime of not educating one’s children, when the much 
greater crime of not supporting them, to say nothing of 
hundreds of other much more serious offences, are provided 
with no such means of detection, is, I submit, incomprehensible. 
But Dr. Miner thinks it is all right, for, according to him, the 
school committee is the “ eye of the State.” Well, you have all 
heard, gentlemen, of the “ Eye ” of Mormon ; that became 
a symbol of tyrannical inspection, and I think that there is more 
scope for Dr. Miner and his inquisitive “ eye ” in Salt Lake 
City than here in Massachusetts. I have run across another 
“eye” of inspection lately; as I come up to these hearings 
through Court Street my attention is always drawn to the eye 
on the advertising sign of the Pinkerton detectives. These 
comparisons are quite in point, gentlemen; for what Dr. Miner 
and his friends would like, is to turn the government into a 
great detective agency, organized for the purpose of prying into 
the affairs of private life, with himself for superintendent, and 
for operatives the local school committees. 

Seriously, gentlemen, does it not strike you as preposterous 
that a local school committee, changingfrom year to year, elected 
oftentimes on political or religious grounds, and having, as a rule, 
no special qualifications for the determination of educational or 
judicial questions, should be elevated into a tribunal final and 
beyond appeal to the prejudice of the established courts of law? 

A further objection to all the proposed measures is that if 
enacted into law they cannot be enforced. A large portion of 
our people, nearly one-half, will regard these laws as a blow at 
their religion and an insult to themselves; and a great many of 
us who are not Catholics will be equally reluctant to surrender 
the right of educating our children to the local school committee 
at the dictation of. the General Court. I take it to be an estab¬ 
lished principle of government that, in a democracy like ours, no 
law can be enforced against the determined and conscience- 
founded opposition of any considerable number of the able-bodied 
male inhabitants. I want to see the minion of the “ State,” — 
which, gentlemen, under our form of Government is only the 
majority or the representatives of that majority,— I want to see 
the minion of the State, who shall attempt to take my child out 
of a school that I approve of, though the local school committee 


i6 


may condemn it; I want to see the State official or the school 
committeeman, who shall dare to thrust his meddling person 
into a school that I am interested in, and attempt to control the 
“ means of education ” that my child is there receiving. We 
are willing that the statute law should reinforce the natural 
obligation to educate our children, and we shall always be ready 
to prove to the satisfaction of the established courts of law 
that we have not violated those obligations ; but if you assume, 
sir, that there is any considerable body of our citizens, Prot¬ 
estant or Catholic, who desire, or countenance, or will submit to 
the tyrannical inspection and control of private schools by local 
school boards, you will make, sir, a vast mistake, a mistake that 
may be fatal to the public schools themselves. The passage of 
these bills can only result in stirring up religious controversy, 
in violations of the law, and in injury to our public schools. 

Would it not also be a very great political mistake for 
the dominant party at the State House to become responsi¬ 
ble for any such legislation? You heard what Mr. Dubuque 
said: that the bill would drive every Catholic in Massachusetts 
into the Democratic party. Such a statement coming from the 
Republican representative from Fall River, supported as it 
was by similar statements from other witnesses, should make 
our Republican friends pause, it seems to me, before they 
commit their party to the policy of Dr. Miner and the Committee 
of One Hundred. Are you prepared, Mr. Chairman, for the sake 
of appeasing a few noisy and excited partisans who in no sense 
represent the great mass of our Protestant or Republican fellow- 
citizens, to pass a law that will forever alienate those of your 
party who are of different race and creed ? A coalition in 1819 
between Democrats and Episcopalians overthrew not only the 
Orthodox establishment in Connecticut but the Federalist party 
as well. 

It is said that these proposed laws are unconstitutional. 
This position I believe to be well founded; but I shall not 
argue the question at length, as the time allowed is too short. 
I will simply ask you, gentlemen, to read our Bill of Rights, 
particularly the 1st, 14th, 15th, and 29th articles, and the 
nth Amendment, and then to consider whether it is within 
your constitutional functions to pass a law that will violate the 


l 7 


right of the citizen to enjoy and defend his life and liberty 
(Art. i); that will violate his right to be “secure from all 
unreasonable searches ” (Art. 14) ; that will take away from him 
the right of trial by jury (Art. 15), and destroy his right to be 
tried by judges “ free, impartial, and independent”; and that 
will violate the injunction that “no subordination of anyone 
sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by 
law” (nth Amendment). 

I will also ask you to reflect that the end of government, 
according to the Preamble to our Bill of Rights, is to furnish 
the individuals who compose the body politic “ with the power 
of enjoying, in safety and tranquillity, their natural rights and 
the blessings of life ” ; and that, in the words of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, “a government which recognizes 
no such rights, which holds the lives, liberties, and property of 
its citizens in the absolute disposition and unlimited control of 
even the most democratic depositary of power, is but a des¬ 
potism.” Are you prepared, gentlemen, to commit the Com¬ 
monwealth of Massachusetts to the un-American doctrine that 
the education of my child belongs not to me, but to my fellow- 
citizens, or to the representatives of the majority of them in 
General Court assembled ? 

Let us now consider some of the special reasons for inter¬ 
fering with private schools advanced by our opponents. 

It is said in the first place that inspection by State or local 
authorities is the only practical way of ascertaining whether or 
not a private school is furnishing to the children who attend it 
that minimum of education which the State demands. I have 
already pointed out that this practical difficulty is no greater 
than that attending the detection of other and far more 
serious crimes ; and the fact that in a prosecution under our 
present statute the burden is on the parent to show that his 
child is receiving the “ means of education ” shows the utter 
hollowness of this pretence. The local authorities have only 
to summon the parent patronizing a private school into Court, 
and the parent must then show that the school did in fact fur¬ 
nish the “ means of education.” That is, under the present 
law the school committee may demand, and the parent is 
entitled to, a judicial inspection of the school; which is certainly 


18 


going a'S far as the State ought to in the control of private 
education. 

Then we have heard a great deal about the necessity of a 
uniform “ American ” education, which “ every citizen of the 
State must receive as a necessary preparation for citizenship.” 
We deny this necessity, and repudiate the socialistic theories 
on which it is grounded. The law of nature is diversity, not 
conformity, and this law applies with equal force to human 
institutions, to industry, to education, and to government itself; 
individuality is the essential condition of all human happiness 
and progress. What is the “ American ” way of teaching read¬ 
ing, writing, and arithmetic? What, for that matter, is the 
“ American ” way of teaching anything ? One would suppose 
that if there was any one capable of answering these questions, 
it would be the Secretary of the State Board of Education, the 
author of the sentiment just quoted ; but on page 171 of his 
Report for 1888, we find this disheartening but truthful state¬ 
ment : 

“ While it seems to be the concurrent opinion of a majority 
of those best able to judge, that a right training of the faculties 
is the ultimate end to be produced by a compulsory education 
of the children, it is quite evident to those familiar with the 
educational affairs of modern times that there is no common 
agreement concerning what right training is, or what are the 
means and causes upon which it depends.” 

Then, as to such studies as history and hygiene, is it not 
quite possible for individual teachers and particular text books 
to inculcate, along with instruction in these branches, certain 
social, political, or religious doctrines which may be offensive to 
certain parents ? And in such cases is the “ State ” to prevent 
the parent from sending his child to some other school which 
is maintained by charity or tuition fees for the purpose of 
teaching these branches in accordance with what the parent 
believes to be the truth ? According as this question is an 
swered by the Legislature, we shall be living in a Democracy 
of the American type, or in that worst form of tyranny, which 
Jefferson foresaw and called an “elective despotism.” 

Of course the advocates of these measures invoke the doc¬ 
trine of Protection. Dr.'Miner said that he wanted a law that 


19 


would “ protect the catholic citizen from the tyranny of the 
priesthood ” ; and Governor Long has solemnly announced that 
it is the function of the State to protect the souls of little 
children ! To such base uses has that in itself harmless word, 
“ protection,” fallen. Gentlemen, I will not here rehearse all 
the crimes against honest industry and labor which have been 
perpetrated for Protection ; but I will ask you to search the 
pages of history and find, if you can, a single crime against 
popular liberties or freedom of conscience that has not been 
committed for the alleged purpose of protecting some one. 
It was to protect the colonies that Great Britain taxed them ; 
it was to protect the young that our Puritan forefathers would 
permit no Anglican or Catholic instruction; it was to protect 
the Albigenses that they were swept from off the earth ; it was 
to protect the soul of the heretic, pro salute anim<z, that they 
took away his life, in the days of Alva and Queen Mary. The 
statute of Elizabeth making it a capital offence to become a 
Romish priest was commended by the prosecuting attorney, who 
in 1681, secured the conviction of George Busby for taking 
orders from Rome, as a law “ in favor of the lay papists them¬ 
selves ” ; and the Catholic priest was hanged, drawn, and quar¬ 
tered as an “act of charity to the common papists.” Gentlemen, 
this country of ours was founded, not for protection, but for 
freedom. 

Genuine freedom, true liberty of conscience, must include the 
right, if the citizen desires it, to submit himself, in matters of 
faith and morals, to the guidance and control of ecclesiastical 
superiors; and whether he chooses to subject himself in such 
matters to the mild and distant rule of Rome, or to the 
scolding terrorism of the Rev. Dr. Miner, is a question for the 
citizen to settle for himself, without assistance from the General 
Court. 

The disloyalty of the Catholics, or rather their possible dis¬ 
loyalty in case the Pope should command that the civil laws be 
disobeyed, has been the burden of most of the testimony and 
argument at these hearings. Now I take it to be true, that a 
conflict between Church and State is quite possible; it will be 
certain to arise whenever the State attempts to interfere with 
liberty of conscience, whether that liberty takes the form of the 


20 


Protestant claim of private judgment, or the Catholic and Epis¬ 
copalian form of submission to the Church. I will go further, and 
point out not a possible, but an actually existing conflict between 
Church and State in Massachusetts. Neither Catholics nor 
Episcopalians recognize the justice or morality of our divorce 
laws ; these laws are in both churches the constant theme of 
ecclesiastical censure, and the subject of “threats of ecclesias¬ 
tical disability.” Now, sir, why does not some one propose a 
law which shall prevent the authorities of the Episcopalian or 
Catholic churches from visiting with “ecclesiastical punishments ” 
their priests or parishioners, who set the law of the State above 
the law of the Church in the matter of divorce ? You doubtless 
remember the indignation manifested by a portion of the press 
when recently an Episcopalian clergyman in Philadelphia, who 
wanted to marry again during the life-time of his divorced wife, 
was forced to resign his pastorate and his priesthood. It was an 
instance of what Dr. Miner has characterized as the doctrine of 
“ obey or get out.” Now, sir, I am not here to defend the 
doctrinal teachings of any particular church, though in this 
matter of divorces my own sympathies are entirely with those 
who believe that the civil law is un-Christian, immoral, and 
impolitic ; but I am here, and glad to be here, to defend the 
right of the citizen to belong to a church that does not hesitate 
to antagonize the civil laws when these are bad, and to educate 
his children, if he pleases, in conformity with the teachings of 
his church, though these conflict with the doctrines of the 
General Court. 

Then, sir, as to the possibility of a conflict between Church 
and State in purely civil matters : one would suppose from the 
time and argument devoted to this subject at these hearings, 
that Mr. Bartlett’s fears had been fulfilled and a Papal edict 
issued for the annexation of New England to the Province of 
Quebec. We have all heard this sort of thing before ; Mr. 
Gladstone took it up some fifteen years ago and proved his case 
with all the eloquence and logic that we can hope to hear from 
Governor Long. The church claims to be supreme in matters of 
faith and morals; the church claims the right to determine the 
province of faith and morals; the Pope is the head of the 
church and infallible in matters of faith and morals ; hence the 


21 


time may come when the State and the Pope may disagree ; 
and the Catholic citizen must either cease to be a good citizen 
or cease to be a good Catholic. The argument is syllogistic and 
the conclusion not to be avoided. But what of it ? Can you 
not, by applying the same reasoning to the Protestant claim of 
private judgment, reach a similar result, except that the 
individual is his own infallible authority ? The whole argu¬ 
ment, gentlemen, is nothing but an illustration of the fallacy of 
pushing political and moral principles to a logical but im¬ 
possible extreme. There is, in fact, no danger in this stage of 
the world’s progress of any attempt on the part of the Pope to 
control our civil government ; and to doubt the result of any 
such attempt if made is to insult the patriotism of our Catholic 
citizens. 

This whole agitation, gentlemen, is, in fact, an attack 
on the patriotism and Americanism of all who belong to 
any church which pretends to teach, in the words of Dr. Miner, 
“ not by force of precept and advice, but by authority,” and who 
refuse to substitute the “State” for what they believe to be 
the church of Christ. 

The first words of the first witness, at the opening hearing, 
were denunciation of a Catholic priest for daring to criticise 
the management of a particular public school in Cambridge; 
and the last act of the last witness, as the hearing closed yes¬ 
terday, was to flourish in his hands, as a specimen of ecclesiasti¬ 
cal hostility to our institutions, the catechism of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church. I have no doubt that this was an accident, 
for it is not the policy of the leaders of this movement to attack 
the Episcopalians ; it is much easier to keep up the enthusiasm 
of their followers by pitching into the Pope. But the incident 
was significant. Mr. Leyden thought that this particular book 
was a Roman Catholic catechism, because, I suppose, it teaches 
that the sacraments are necessary to salvation, that we owe sub¬ 
mission to our spiritual pastors and masters, and belief in the 
Holy Catholic Church. This is all as it should be; for the 
Miners and Leydens of to-day are the legitimate successors to 
those Massachusetts clergymen of ninety years ago, who 
denounced every Episcopalian as a “ tory,” every Catholic as a 
4 ‘ Papist,” and Thomas Jefferson as an “atheist,” and through 


22 


whose:efforts the adoption by Massachusetts of the American 
principle of individual freedom in educational matters was 
delayed till 1826. They preach the same doctrines of intoler¬ 
ance and controversial hate that, in the 17th century, led to dis¬ 
franchisement and exile, but which to-day seem to point to the 
deification of the “State.” We, on the other hand, Mr. Chair¬ 
man, insist that the spirit of our American institutions is the 
spirit of individual liberty ; that that it is which has made this 
country great; and that a rigid adherence to that idea is the 
only thing that will save us from the death grip of socialistic 
principles. 

We have come here, sir, as Protestants, to protest against the 
passage of any law that shall subject the citizen to the domina¬ 
tion of the State in the more intimate affairs of private life; to 
protest against the principle that the studies and methods of 
education may be prescribed by law and enforced by the 
inquisitional persecution of a school board. 

Do not seek, gentlemen, to drive people into the public schools 
by the irritating lash of legislation ; if they do not choose to go 
you cannot make them. If it is the deliberate intention of any 
portion of the people to take their children out of the public 
schools, we cannot help it, however much we may regret it. 
Do not, for the sake of preserving our public schools, recommend 
a law that, under the guise of educational provisions, inter¬ 
venes between the citizen and his church, between the parent 
and his child. Do not commit the Commonwealth to an educa¬ 
tional policy wholly foreign to the spirit of our institutions, and 
for which no precedent can be found in any of our sister States. 
Do not recommend any law that will interfere with the right of 
the citizen to live and die and educate his children in the full, 
untrammelled, unrestricted, uninspected exercise of Christian 
Liberty. Above all things, gentlemen, do not assume that these 
petitioners represent any considerable portion of the Protes¬ 
tants of Massachusetts; and do not be deceived by them into 
passing a law that will not effect the subordination of the 
Citizen to the State in educational matters, but that may end in 
the destruction of our public schools. 



23 


* 


We ask, Mr. Chairman, that if the Supreme Court, which 
has been requested to construe our present school laws, holds 
that Ch. 47, §i of the Public Statutes permits the existence of 
private uninspected schools, then that you give these petitioners 
leave to withdraw. If, on the other hand, the decision is that 
no private school can be maintained unless inspected and 
approved by the local school committee, then we ask you to 
repeal the law forthwith. In either event, it might be well to 
pass such a law as Mr. Ladd of Chauncy Hall School sug¬ 
gested last year, authorizing the school committee to inspect 
and in its discretion to approve any private school that requests 
an examination. 









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